Rubin brings together and integrates the best contemporary work on the cognitive psychology of memories of the self. Autobiographical memory is the basis for most psychotherapies, an important repository of legal, historical, and literary information, and, in some views, the source of the concept of self. When it fails, it is the focus of serious complaints in many neurological disorders. Introductory chapters place the study of autobiographical memory in its historical, methodological, and theoretical contexts. Later chapters report original research concerning the recollections people have of substanial portions of their lives. Topics include the schematic and temporal organization of autobiographical memory, the temporal distribution of autobiographical memories, and failures of autobiographical memory in various forms of amnesia.
